


Acanthoscurria geniculata

by DustyForgotten



Series: Arachnophobia [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bugs & Insects, Confrontations, Crime Fighting, Developing Relationship, Drama, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Murder Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:33:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23132491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DustyForgotten/pseuds/DustyForgotten
Summary: Kylo comes up on the crime scene he knows he’ll spend the next twenty minutes staring at, but from the slight silhouette, it seems that someone beat him to it. “If it’s that twat and her dog again…" he mutters into the receiver, which informs the figure of his presence.It turns to address him— definitely not the dog lady."You're not a cop," asserts a man with an unsettling gaze that Ren met just earlier that day.Kylo stops dead on the path. “… I’ll call you back.”
Relationships: Armitage Hux & Kylo Ren
Series: Arachnophobia [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/570484
Comments: 10
Kudos: 27





	Acanthoscurria geniculata

Unannounced visitors are evidently not all that unusual for the entomologist; he glances up from flipping through mail, and seems slightly surprised only that his eyes have to dart more than four feet from the floor. “This can’t wait until I’ve slept off the jetlag?”

“You weren’t planning on going to bed anytime soon,” Ren replies, arms crossed and door clicking closed behind his heel. He’s fully dressed, looking no more tired than usual. “You’re not gonna ask how I got your address?”

“You work in a police station; I expected as much.” Hux admits, tossing the entire stack. “It’s only fair, considering I could still find yours in my message history.”

“Not to mention we’re such secret butt buddies, even  _ I _ didn’t know about it.” Kylo invites himself further in the apartment, despite the withering look Hux has affixed him with. He's still mad about Hux going behind his back to cover, and he's not entirely certain why.

His place is disgustingly immaculate— especially since it’s been uninhabited for a week— with a glass-top table and unscuffed upholstery. He’s assessing an interesting installment of wall art when Hux speaks up, quite suddenly. “Have you been keeping up with that case?”

“Of course.” He’s the CSI for one, and witness to the other. Wait, which is this about?

“On more than the news, I mean. You’ve been hanging out with Phas, I hear. Bribed her for the report yet?”

It’s a fucking ant farm. He scurries to the seating area, where Hux has his suitcase open. “Uh— no?” Normally he just waits until the detective’s out and swipe it from their desk, so all he has is what she told him over fast food, and he’s not about to try intimidating the coroner because, well… she scares him a little.

“I’m disappointed, but not surprised.” He produces a deli container from between bundled garments, and Kylo follows him to the kitchen. “You want to play detective so bad? Find out who killed that schoolteacher.”

He stops, arms crossed, while Hux prods in the utensil drawer. “Why do you care?” he prompts, narrowly beating out “ _ don’t tell me what to do. _ ”

“The longer they’re looking for suspects, the more often my story comes into question.” He points a pair of kitchen tongs accusingly at Kylo, who does not flinch (though only barely). “You know Kylo, I’m not all that interested in prison.”

Ren looks him over with a sneer; the kind of people he used to arrest could kill this academic obsessive with one hand and a toothbrush. “Right, I forgot everything was all about you. People are dead, asshole.”

“People die everyday.” He waves it off, plucking a paper towel from the container. “I know you only care about catching the bad guys so far as it strokes your ego— which is why I won't hesitate to sell you for a reduced sentence!”

Kylo’s the only reason he’s implicated at all— in for a dime, in for a dollar. “We’re not going to jail,” he bemoans. God, he hates being the rational one; his whole asshole routine falls apart when he actually has to get things done.

“You’re damn right we aren’t,” he snaps, stabbing his newfound weapon at Kylo, “because you’re finding the fuck that did this, and putting him away for fifteen to life.”

Ren’s about to accuse him of knowing the murderer’s a man, despite the statistics that say as much, but the question is cut off by a sound Kylo has never before uttered, and decides instantly to never make again, when out of its paper towel sarcophagus comes skittering a spider. “Another fucking  _ spider!? _ ” He screeches, as if this is somehow a surprise.

“Well, Millie needed a husband,” the entomologist allays, only acknowledging the tarantula scaling his arm when it crests the shoulder and he cups a hand to catch it. “Hello, handsome.”

“Unbelievable!”

“This is perfectly within my character, Ren.”

“Yeah, no wonder we’re not a thing," Kylo snipes, hands up and halfway to the door.

There’s a moment of remorse for being so quick to rub in rejection (partially because he thinks Hux is gonna throw the tarantula at him) but the eccentric only sweeps away, with a spider in hand and tongs resting on his shoulder. “He was bludgeoned somewhere secluded that not many know he frequented; that sort of thing tends to be personal.”

He feels pointedly threatened, and a little like running away, only to be dismissed with, “Now get out before your squealing wakes my landlord.”

* * *

The snow has started melting in uncharacteristic magnanimity, trickling down the rocks in picturesque little waterfalls and ruining his goddamn crime scene. Not like there was much left of it a month out, but the tape's still up… mostly because nobody bothered to take it down.

When a dog barks, Kylo instinctively curls his lip at it before the owner prances up after. "Oh my God!" she reels, stopping short of the ground-brushing crime tape like it's not calf-height. "Lex, heel!" The shepherd trots over to stand against her corduroys, still staring suspiciously. "I am so sorry—"

"Don't worry about it," Kylo replies, just to shut her up.

"Did… he didn't…" He wants to tell her to shove off so he can fucking think, but the shepherd showing teeth makes Ren reconsider. "You know… interfere?"

She thinks he's a detective, just 'cause he's over the invisible line. May as well play the cards he gets. "No, not at all." He doesn't say that the scene's dead, anyway. Crime happens fast, and police work is slow— court's even slower, if it gets that far.

She nods, agreeably, keeping a closer eye on her dog. "Have you… you know, did you…" He doubts that tape will hold as a garrote, so they're stuck with her clumsy attempts at communicating. "Do you have any… leads?"

Kylo just shrugs, glaring at a gap in the ground cover until she realizes she's not wanted.

No such luck. "I hope you find… you know, he seemed like a nice man."

Optimistic bitch. "Did you know him?"

"I didn't… not really, you know?" No, he fucking doesn't; that's why he's asking the goddamn questions. "But we kind of, you know, ran into… on a couple of walks, Lex and I…" Of course; her inane greetings in the morning are the reason he only jogs in the middle of the night now, like a damn cryptid. "But, you know, his kid seemed nice, so…"

"Kid?" They tend to mention children in obituaries, and he definitely doesn't remember any for this guy.

She seems surprised for a second, before deciding she should probably answer. Maybe if he twists the tape first… "You know, his son… I assumed it was his… maybe a nephew or neighbour or…"

"Well, what did the kid look like?" He's being snippy, but sometimes that helps.

The woman glances back at her dog, like he's gonna answer for her. "You know, brunet, twelve or so… Maybe ten…"

Ren nods like he knows who she's talking about, crossing impressive arms over his chest. So rabid for a heatwave he didn't grab his coat, so he's kind of cold— plus, it looks suitably standoffish. "Did he say anything?"

It seems to sink in she's being interrogated. "I don't… we didn't… talk, really…"

"… Uh-huh," Kylo replies noncommittally. "Well, you call if you remember anything else, right?"

"I-I will," she stutters, crunching refrozen snow in a backwards step, "c'mon, Lex…"

Is he scaring her? He hopes so. "And get a leash!"

* * *

Old woman slipped in the shower almost a week ago; neighbours just now noticed. Kylo thought he'd seen it all, but old lady boobs evidently still do him in. The photographer is taking his damn time in that tiny bathroom, but Kylo knows he'd club the kid were he too quick about it, so they all wait in the hallway elbow-to-elbow, like everyone has to pee and it's halftime.

Someone slides in at his left, and Kylo only spares a glance to ensure his personal space is uninfringed. Then he recognizes the guy, and realizes he can get something way better out of this.

"Mitaka," Ren purrs, snarling sidelong. If this were the line to the pisser, he just saved the detective the trip. "How's that case?"

"Th—" His tongue rattles between his teeth, sounding similar to a computer freeze, before he sucks it back in. "Which… which case, sir?"

The CSI gives him a long-suffering stare. "Guess."

"I don't think I should talk about…" He looks at Phasma like a lost puppy, while she pointedly pretends not to notice. Kylo decides then that she's alright.

"The chief put me back on duty. You disagree with that?"

"No— no sir!' If his balls ever dropped, they just retreated. "I guess there's not really much to say… Our best lead was those maggots, and Hux doe-"

"I talked to Hux— I'm asking  _ you  _ now." Personal space is invaded, but Kylo doesn't care when he's the one advancing.

Mitaka fiddles with the cuff of his shirt, so skittish he may have missed his first try to handcuff somebody. "… You talked to him?" Ren gives him a glare that effectively says  _ duh. _ "He's not answering my calls…"

There's disappointment in his tone, and Kylo's not sure where his flare of rage comes from. He settles on, "So you let a murder go cold?"

His face goes pale as grandma there. "There— there's nothing—"

Ren rolls his eyes and announces to the room as a whole, "Next time I don't make it in, send a squad car. I was probably killed and nobody thought to follow up."

" _ Next _ time?" Phasma snarks, beating him to the bathroom.

Just when he was starting to like her.

* * *

_ "Shame, that," _ Hux admits on about the eighteenth ring,  _ "I knew they were  _ Lucilia cuprina  _ based upon the climate, but all the debridement labs I've contacted have their own legacy strains of  _ L. sericata.  _ The morphological differences are negligible, but medical maggots that eat live flesh— like  _ cuprina  _ are inclined— defeat the purpose, don't they?" _

He hasn't heard this much Latin since his arraignment. "Wait, so they don't just eat dead stuff?" Oh God; Hux's  _ hand. _

_ " _ L. cuprina  _ are the primary culprit of flystrike, though only in specific environmental conditions." _ Kylo is too engrossed by all-too-easily imagining gangrene and skin slough.  _ "They could be research specimens— there are some studies on larval secretions in the treatment of MRSA, for example— regulation on those is much more lax, as you may imagine." _ He's already so boney; it wouldn't take long for all the flesh to slip right off and clog up the shower drain.  _ "I believe Theed has one for its biological sciences—" _

"Hux, are you okay?"

The line goes quiet, and Kylo fights his pride on whether to take it back. He hardly hears over his tinnitus, the stilted reply,  _ "… Why?" _

"Because you dipped your whole fuckin' hand in those things—"

_ "For Christ's sake," _ he says, and hangs up.

* * *

Theed University's director of biological sciences is pretty cool, in all honesty. He's only a little suspicious when Kylo shows up and says he's with the police: doesn't even ask for a badge— which is great, because Ren doesn't have one. His name's Lando and he's super into Star Wars, so he literally can't be bad. Kylo's crunching on a Dum-Dum he grabbed from a cup labelled "Bad Grade Consolations" and listening enrapt to Lando's tale of the fourteen months he lived on a ship in the Pacific when Kylo remembers why the fuck he's here.

"So, ah," he chomps the remnants of his sucker off the stick and abruptly swallows the shards, starting before another story can, "I'm told you have an ongoing project with some fly larvae?" Ren hopes the break in his voice passes as a burp.

Lando looks almost disappointed to talk shop, despite how excitable he is about everything. "Oh yes,  _ L. cuprina. _ Their secretions are remarkably antiseptic, and we're researching their use in the treatment of antibiotic resistant infection."

"Where do you keep them?"

"The bioscience lab," he drawls, unsure of the unexpected interest.

"Who's got access to that?"

"Anybody on campus, really, which is most of the issue."

Kylo takes the paper stick from between his teeth, like a cigarette to his noir detective, and leans in— more out of honest confusion than his attempt to emulate a film cop. "What issue?"

He seems pained to admit, "A few months ago, about half our stock went missing."

What do they say in those black-and-white movies? Bingo? “What do you mean, missing?"

"Well, they didn’t wiggle away.” Ren considers strangling him before he realizes that’s probably not an insult to his intelligence. “It’s just a nicer way of saying stolen, I suppose.” 

“Why would someone steal larva?” Kylo presses, knowing full well what those larvae were for.

“Beats me.” The professor pointedly rearranges his pen cup while offering, “My best guess was for a large-scale taxidermy project, but they sell those beetles on Ebay. Theft is a lot of effort for a colony that’s going to self-eradicate in a few days, anyway.”

Ren nods, face in his fingers. So close, but Lando just can’t think awful enough.

* * *

_ “Ren, it’s one in the morning.” _

“You weren’t answering my texts,” the CSI replies, pacing his own disorganized living room— which is, in fact, where he does the majority of his living.

_ “I remind you of the time.” _

“Then why’d you pick up?”

Shuffling, which distinctly does not sound like bedsheets.  _ “What is it, then?” _

For his part, Kylo drops a thick stack of printer paper on the coffee table, rippling what’s left of all the alcohol in the house. “I’ve read this roster Mitaka got me three times, and I still can’t find our guy. He’s got to be in there; nobody else had access to the bioscience lab.”

_ “It’s an educational institution, they must have security cameras.” _

“The theft wasn’t big enough to turn the tape over to the police. It’s already been overwritten.” He gestures to the room at large, empty as it is.

_ “Ah, budget cuts…” _

“Students, professors, administrators, TAs— I even looked through the janitorial staff. There’s no connection to the victim.”

_ “There has to be.” _

“There’s not,” Kylo reiterates more forcefully, dropping onto the lumpy sofa. In the answering silence, he realizes he’s left an entire cushion open, as if waiting for someone else to join him. “… Come over.”

Hux sounds just as surprised as Kylo by the invitation, but thankfully makes no mention.  _ “I, ah, I can’t leave the apartment right now.” _

“Why not?”

_ “Millie and Lucas are in adjacent enclosures, courting. I have to watch for the opportune moment to introduce them in the hopes they’ll get on alright.” _

Alone in his home, with no one but the raccoon skull to judge him, Kylo lets himself smile. “I like the name Lucas.”

_ “I hoped if I gave him a good one, he would survive.” _

“Good plan,” Ren agrees, narrowly avoiding the admission of how adorable he finds the nail-biting stakes Hux puts in to his spider match-making. He stares at a wall, and his shitty spackle job. His bottle’s running low. “I interviewed the entire science department. Nobody knows anything. I’m not sure how many I can sit down with again. At least a few figured out I’m not a detective.”

_ “I’ll go. With my accreditations, educators kill to get me in their lecture hall.” _

“No, I can figure something out, I-…”  _ It’s not like I have anything better to do. _ “It’s my ass on the line. I’ll solve it.”

_ “I put myself on that line too, you know.” _

“You didn’t have to do that,” Ren admits, quietly, suddenly afraid every insect and rodent is listening. “I don’t think I ever said it, but… thank you.”

_ “Well, I already said this, but, again, you’re welcome.” _

Kylo switches the phone to his other ear, to stall for something to say. Thankfully, Hux takes up the space.  _ “Take a break, Ren. Go for a walk or something. If you’re being polite, you’ve clearly gone stir-crazy.” _

He stands, loathe to stay still, doesn’t hit the table this time. “Yeah… Yeah. I’m gonna go for a jog.” Clutching the phone to his ear, he slips his jacket on the opposite arm. “Stay on the line? In case I come up with something,” the CSI explains swiftly.

_ “Well, it’s not like I have somewhere to be. Just watching two Mexican red-knees whose most interesting behaviour is eating twice a month and the occasional aggressive coupling.” _

“You know, that sounds like my uncle Luke,” he quips, slamming the unlocked door after him. He doesn’t own anything worth stealing.

Hux chuckles lightly, and Ren feels better already. 

Kylo comes up on the crime scene he knows he’ll spend the next twenty minutes staring at, but from the slight silhouette, it seems that someone beat him to it. “If it’s that twat and her dog again…" he mutters into the receiver, which informs the figure of his presence.

It turns to address him— definitely not the dog lady.

"You're not a cop," asserts a man with an unsettling gaze that Ren met just earlier that day.

Kylo stops dead on the path. “… I’ll call you back.”

Hux protests before being silenced by an ended call. He holds the cell loose in his low hand, not deposited in the pocket where he could have any other number of items.

You shoot people that hide their hands,

"No,” he tells Theed’s zoology instructor evenly, “not anymore.”

Mabon— he thinks that's his name— glances him over, too quick to take in much of anything. “Impersonating an officer is serious.”

He’s twitchy in that unsure, adrenalized kind of way. People get compulsive like that.

Kylo knows how to handle it.

“I never said I’m an officer,” he continues, conversationally. “I said I’m with the police, which is true, I’m a CSI.”

He wets a quivering lip, complaining to a nearby tree, “‘Course it’s an ex-cop’s backyard…”

Just because Ren can’t see a weapon doesn’t mean he’s unarmed— Kylo’s own Glock is in a lockbox under the bed. Fucking useless.

The teacher’s huffing like a paint-sniffer, and Ren almost wishes the hypertension would kill him. Gently, he presses, “Why are you here?” He wants to use his name, wiggle that little bit closer, but can’t quite remember it.

Crossed arms still shake, and he sounds surprisingly close to tears. “I thought I left something.”

The academy told him how to handle a suicide case, and negotiate a hostage release, but Nabon just comes off like a guy in too deep.”I might’ve seen it. What’re you looking for?”

The professor stutters a heavy inhale. “Boy’s beanie, red and brown…” It’s his kid; of course it is. He wasn’t in the vic’s class, or Kylo would have seen it— he should’ve seen a photo on his desk, or a bumper sticker, something— “he probably left it at school.”

That’s a dismissal, and that’s dangerous. Self-loathing later. “You have children?”

“Yeah, a son, Bryan,” he answers before realizing the question is just another way for Kylo to ingratiate himself. He’s a professor; he’s too fucking smart for this. He eyes him warily, but offers anyway, “He’s eleven.”

“So he’s in, what, sixth grade?”

“Seventh.”

Victim taught seventh. “How’s he like it?”

Nabon’s frown trembles when he says, “It’s the worst thing that ever happened to him.”

Glint of eyes in the dark, silence of a half-frozen forest. “That why you killed the teacher?”

“That SOB—!” Twigs snap under the Nabon’s step, but he doesn’t draw. He’s got nothing to hit with. “You trust these people, with your children, and they use them like…” He cups the back of his balding head, babbling. “He kept begging to move schools, and I just— even when he did, I…” A shaky breath, huffed like he’s about to stroke out, “My boy’s never going to be the same…”

So, the dead man wasn’t such an upstanding citizen after all. Isn’t that always how it goes?

“I had Bryan’s bat in the trunk— I was going to donate it— he doesn’t play anymore. He stopped caring about sports, about everything since… God, how didn’t I see that?”

Failure as a father is the worst that could have happened; killing is easy after that. “What happened, Nabon?”

“I don’t know!” Good thing he hasn’t got a gun, or he may have stuck it in his own mouth by now. “Bryan told me, told me where, and I followed him, and I…” He seems so strange, all because his eyes are a touch too far apart. “I thought the larvae would get rid of it. They were supposed to get rid of it, and mature, and disappear, and we could just move on…”

Kylo wishes he’d never gone out that night, and no one had found what was left of a pedophilic middle school teacher. He wishes, shamefully, that this man had gotten away with it.

Nabon presses the heel of his palm to his forehead, hard enough it marks sienna skin, and fatalistically confesses, “I’m going to prison.”

Second degree is twenty years tops, but that’s a lot for a seventh-grader without a dad.

“Who said anything about that?” Beady eyes beg from half Ren’s height, hopeful and helpless to an authority Kylo… really doesn’t miss. “Like I said, Nabon… I’m not a cop.”


End file.
